Philosophy / Science / Religion

[Alex]

Just out of curiosity - what do you (or anyone wishing to reply) make of the fact that something is either a particle or a wave depending on whether it is observed by someone with consciousness?

If true, I'd think it nifty, but you're incorrect (at least according to the leading physicists who understand this stuff much better than me and are nice enough to try and explain the math in laymen's terms) about consciousness being the mechanism for waveform collapse. Mathematically it is not. However, for I'd think pretty obvious reasons, we can never know the outcome of that collapse without a consciousness being involved but that doesn't mean it created the created the collapse.

And if you want to go way down the quantum consciousness route you'll run into another refutation of free will in the form of the fact that while the exact result of a specific wavefunction collapse can not be predetermined it can be defined exactly probablistically. And then when you take that idea into the various described metaverses or multiverse you kill free will completely for if all possible outcomes actually exist then no choice can ever be made.

[Ghoulish Delight]

What Alex said. Subatomic particles exhibit properties of both waves and particles, but that doesn't mean they are either one or the other.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

If you believe that the universe runs on rules, then it follows that our brain also runs on rules.

[innerSpaceman]

GD, I believe you are incorrect about subatomic particles having properties of both particles and waves. The entire point of the huge scientific splash the discovery made quite a few years back was that they are pure potentiality and that they behave as either particles OR waves, not both, and which behavior manifests is determined by the mere act of being observed.

Perhaps I'm not as up-to-date on this as I'd like - - - but that was the big news in physics-meets-metaphysics, and I've heard nothing but subsequent confirmations.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by iSm

Yes, I agree diseases, injuries, chemicals, energies all affect how we think and feel. But they do not affect ALL we think and feel. We have the ability to think and act independent of those inputs. Where is the science indicating we do not?

Seems to me the question would be "where is the science indicating that we think and act independently of our physical selves?"

Originally Posted by iSm

I'm not saying thought is not a physical reality. But I am saying it's a reality at least partially under control and guidance by a living entity.

Ok, so what IS a living entity? How does it control and guide? Living entities are physical beings, made of physical particles that run under laws. To say that the control and guidance is not physical in itself makes it sound like you're referring to something above "the whole of its parts". It's like saying that an assembled automobile is more than lubricating oil, gas being sparked into explosions, electrical signals, etc. A car is a car, functioning on the laws of physics, unless you believe a car has a metaphysical spirit of its own (and a lot of people do).

This isn't to say that we aren't "more" than the whole of our parts - the beauty of the top layer of our brains is well established. We've taken these rough bits of reality and made amazing things with it. The uncountable billions of neuron fires that go into painting and political theory and space travel should not go uncredited. Hell, I'll even say that cars DO have a personality of their own - and that it's a combination of their many parts. A 1988 Toyota Tercel with a high pitched whine, high gas mileage, springy seats and no a/c would feel totally different than a 1979 Cadillac with a lazy turn signal, low slung ride and well-worn leather...and we would interact with the cars in different ways. That doesn't mean that they are anything more than the sum of their physically limited parts.

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

The entire point of the huge scientific splash the discovery made quite a few years back was that they are pure potentiality and that they behave as either particles OR waves, not both, and which behavior manifests is determined by the mere act of being observed.

Someone needs to correct me if I'm wrong but I've always thought that this was no big deal when I realized that in order to observe something you have to bounce something off of it - light, gamma rays, or what have you. Bouncing rays off of minute particles would obviously affect them. Maybe a Smell-O-Scope would be more useful.

If this is true (I'm too lazy to research it) then how does that affect causality and decision making theory? It doesn't matter to me what the nuts and bolts in my head actually are, what matters is that they are things that act in a certain way. If the claim is that "we can therefore know nothing of the universe" then you may want to turn in your television, your polio vaccine, and everything else man ever created because of scientific inquiry. Obviously, there is plenty we can and do know. If the claim is that "we can never know how minute physics works because we can't view it", that doesn't mean we assume that it doesn't work by any rules. Everything we have ever discovered works on rules, and the burden of proof is on the other side of things.

If you haven't heard it already - Here's a short-short version of Hofstadter's "Careenium" analogy, which I think goes a long way towards making firing neurons and bouncing electrons make more sense in terms of consciousness.

[innerSpaceman]

I remember distinctly my reactions to the (1st) Body Worlds exhibit in L.A. Well, my first reaction was being far too conscious of my skeletal, muscular and circulatory systems as I lived and breathed for the next several months (which is why I didn't go to see subsequent shows).

But my second reaction was - even after viewing all the wonderful mechanics of human biology, and speaking extensively with the curators and staff of the exhibit - I could grok how everything worked so amazingly - but still not have an inkling of WHY it worked. That is, what made the system go and do what it was so well-equipped to do. Sorry, but electrical impulses and energy direction (especially if you add in that the direction is also based purely on other mechanics) is simply not enough for me. It doesn't cut it for me, and never will.

After seeing that exhibit, I felt like a walking meat puppet for far too long. But that's not what I am. If anyone wants to be cool with that concept, or consider that the end of story for them, that's fine. But it's not for me, and as far as I'm concerned, it's regrettably (if understandably) short-sighted.


I know that doesn't exactly address your questions, CP, and I haven't yet had a chance to read what you linked to.

More later.



Thanks for the interesting thread, btw. I hope we can soon move past this quasi-dispute about the nature of the soul vs. meat puppet and discuss some other science / philosophy / religion as well.

[Ghoulish Delight]

The best answer to the question of particle vs. wave and potentiality collapses lies in the definition of "observe".

It's a poor choice of words, imo, that has unfortunately stuck because it makes for a good mental image, but it does not mean "observe" in the sense of "only when a conscious being makes an observation." It simple means "is interacted with."

Left alone, in a vacuum, isolated from all other molecules, atoms, particles, the electrons around an individual atom remain in a state of pure potential. The only certainty you can say is that, "If something tries to interact with this atom, the mass and charge of its electrons will act as if they are at some point within a particular region around the atom. What the exact point is, at the exact moment of interaction is unknown. All we can say about it is that for each possible point within that region, there is a certain, known, probability that the electron will be at that point."

However, the instant anything, ANYTHING, interacts with the atom/electron, that collapses, and the position is definite. It has nothing to do with consciousness, or a person "observing" it.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Bleh, I don't like that summary of the Careenium. It's one of the most powerful thought experiments I've ever read and those 5 paragraphs don't nearly do it justice.

[Morrigoon]

maybe "observable" would be a more helpful term?

[innerSpaceman]

I dig your point about the defects in using the word "observation" when the scientists, purportedly, mean something entirely different. It seems like you did some research on it, so I will trust you ... but the fact that electrons will change or become "activated" to be either particle or wave when they interact with something else is so completely D'UH that I'm perplexed it made such a splash of news when it was "discovered."

And why would they not only use the term "observe," but also strongly imply in all the stories I've seen and heard that it was, in fact, the act of observation and not any interaction with the physical that caused the sub-atom to become either particle or wave???




There's either more to this, or much misleading has been done by the scientific news media of the day. But I'm far too busy to look into it myself, so I'm content to leave it where you left it.